Light Down (2018)
After the traditional folk song LOVING HENRY

Light Down takes its title from the opening line of the traditional murder ballad Loving Henry. The folk material, the story of a woman murdering her adulterer lover, is quoted in the alto flute. The ensemble interjects through a catalogue of orchestrational colors - a scrape on the tam-tam, a cluster in the piano, or a drone on the open strings of the cello. A series of sections based on patterns frame the ballad. This piece is dedicated to noexit, whose artistic directors always elicit particular delight in the macabre.

Light down, light down, loving Henry, she said 
And stay all night with me 
There’s a chair for you and a chair for me 
And th candle’s a burning free

I can’t light down Lady Marget, he said 
And stay all night with thee
For my only little gallin the Arkansas land 
Will wait long for me comin home

Then bending over th horn of his saddle 
He kissed her one, two and three
She took a sharp knife all from her side 
And pierced him both wide and deep 

Ride on, ride on, loving Henry, she cried 
And ride beneath th sun
And your only little gal in th Arkansas land 
Will wait long for you comin home

I can’t ride on, Lady Marget, he cried 
And ride beneath th sun 
For don’t you see my own hearts blood 
A tricklin down, does run

Some takin him by th lily white hands 
Some takin him by th feet
They throwed him in th dark river side 
That runs so wide and deep

Lie there, lie there, lov’n Henry, she cried 
Till th meat rots off your bones
And your only little gal, in the Arkansas land 
Will wait long for you comin home

Loving Henry
As sung by Joan O’Bryant Wichita, Kansas
June 21, 1958
Max Hunter Folk Song Collection Missouri State University






Live Recording
March 2018
No Exit New Music Ensemble
WOLFS Gallery
Cleveland, OH

Light Down (2018) - flute, string trio, piano & percussion

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